


Those Lovely Steps

by dumplin



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Doctor Blythe to the rescue, F/M, more pre-relationship than anything else, seriously the lack of sex ed in this time period is shocking, sex ed: it's important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23630851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumplin/pseuds/dumplin
Summary: Anne's curiosity leads to several semi-uncomfortable conversations and a sort of, kinda, revelation.Alternatively: Gilbert Blythe is the resident sex-ed teacher.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 19
Kudos: 241





	Those Lovely Steps

Staring up into Gilbert’s dark eyes, feeling the weight of the stares of the girls behind her, Anne had chickened out. There was no other name for it. She’d chickened out, been a coward, not able to force the words out of her mouth. 

She could argue that it was in front of the church, that it was no place for a discussion of such… indelicacy to take place, if there was ever a place for it, but the plain truth of the matter was that Anne Shirley-Cuthbert had chickened out. She couldn’t find the words for once in her life, couldn’t figure out a way to pose the question as to not look stupid, or common. She still hadn’t figured out a way to do that, but she was still curious.

That night, she cornered Marilla, hoping that, woman to woman, at least Marilla would be able to tell her what it was all about. There had to be some steps beyond touching hands and walking together that led to conception, to an actual life being formed inside a woman, but Anne… found herself stumped. She was well aware of the fact that she knew a bit more about the realities of the world than her classmates, having spent the majority of her life in less than genteel society, but she still only had vague ideas and hints about how the process actually  _ worked _ . 

Marilla would tell her, she was sure of it. 

Except, of course, Marilla stuttered and blushed and blurted out a few vague terms such as “love” and “marriage” (which, of course, Anne already knew about, though she had her doubts about how necessary those two components were, given the stories she’d heard at the orphanage), and, at the end of the day, Anne was no closer to understanding the steps than she had been at the beginning of the day. 

Usually, if Marilla wasn’t able to help her, she would ask Matthew, but Anne had a suspicion he would be even more awkward about the whole situation, having all but run out of the room each time Anne had so much as even  _ hinted _ at her cycle in the preceding years. (And that was another mystery -- how, exactly, the cycle of blood and pain figured into this whole conception business.)

So. Marilla was out, and so was Matthew. Miss Stacy, bless her excellent self, had proven useless on the topic as well, and since Diana knew about as much about the process as Anne did, Anne found herself staring at the glum conclusion that she would  _ have _ to ask Gilbert about it all. Again. And, hopefully, this time, alone. 

They’ve come a far bit from the childish rivalry from when Anne first arrived in Avonlea, and they were close enough with the family that Anne felt no compunction about showing up at the Blythe-Lacroix house one spring afternoon, a basket of rolls clutched in her hands as an excuse for showing up in the first place. She knocked and stepped back, going right back to carefully constructing the question in her head. If Delphine was there, it would be the perfect opener. Now if she could just--

The door opened and Anne jumped slightly before collecting herself and smiling up at a surprised looking Gilbert. 

“I brought some bread rolls!” Anne announced, pushing past him into the kitchen and placing the basket on the table, surreptitiously looking around to see that Bash was… not in sight. “Is Bash here?” Better to be safe than sorry. 

“Uh, no? Did you want to speak with him?” Gilbert turned away from the door, eyebrows hitched up in that peculiar confused way he always seemed to get when conversing with Anne (she was used to confusing people, so that was okay, she thought). 

“No, actually, I wanted to speak with you.” Anne busied herself unpacking the rolls on a kitchen cloth, carefully not looking at Gilbert. “It’s, well. You remember that conversation we had on the church steps last Sunday?”

There was a pause behind her, and Anne could almost feel those eyes burning into her back as she carefully, so carefully, arranged the rolls into a pyramid. She’d made them herself and they’d come out quite well, if she did say so herself. Gilbert still hadn’t answered. She took a deep breath; this was just Gilbert, after all, and turned around, leaning back against the table, crossing her arms. 

Gilbert seemed frozen by the door, mouth half open and eyebrows raised sky-high as he stared at her. “Well, come on, it’s a simple question, a yes or no will suffice.”

“I-- yes.”

Anne nodded her head briskly, focusing her eyes somewhere to the left of Gilbert’s ear. Much easier to talk to, like that. “Good. Well, there was actually--” deep breaths, Anne, “--there was actually one more question I wanted to ask.” Anne swallowed, pinched her forearm, and forced her eyes to meet Gilbert’s. Come on, Anne, you practised this. “It’s not-- you don’t need to  _ tell _ me, I mean, yourself, but I was wondering if-- that is, if you had any reading material on the subject of, of conception.” 

Anne shut her mouth with a clack, wincing at the feeling of her teeth clashing, but proud of herself for getting it out at all, even with the way Gilbert was staring at her like he’d just been hit by several trains. The silence between them stretched and stretched, and. Well, Anne had never been the best at staying silent. 

“If you haven’t, that’s fine I just thought I’d ask and--” She broke off as Gilbert held up a finger, effectively stopping her torrent of words, and disappeared deeper into the house. She listened to him rummaging around, only realising she was mangling a roll between her hands when Gilbert returned and shot a pointed glance down at her hands, where she’d made a perfect mess of crumbs on the floor and on her dress. 

“Oh, sorry, I’ll just--”

“It’s fine.” There was amusement in his eyes now, dancing darkly as he stepped closer and handed her a thick, solemn looking tome. “I’ll clean that up. This,” he gestured to the tome Anne was now cradling, “should tell you everything you need or, uh, want to know. Chapter Eight, to be specific.” He was definitely grinning now, verging on laughing as he took in the sure to be shell-shocked expression on Anne’s face. 

“Thanks!” Anne winced internally, wishing her voice didn’t have the proclivity to squeak when she was discomfited, thereby announcing her emotional state to the whole entire world. “I mean, thank you, I’m-- yes.” He was still smiling at her, eyes still dancing, and there was something, something  _ soft _ and  _ fond _ in his eyes and-- and Anne had to leave right now, before she started thinking about silly things like, how Ruby wasn’t completely  _ wrong _ when she went on about how handsome Gilbert was. 

Silly, stupid, insane thoughts, really. 

She took her leave quickly after that, barely remembering to snatch up the basket before she was out the door, book a heavy, intriguing weight in said basket. Thankfully, Marilla had stopped coming into her room to check that her candle was put out lately, so tonight,  _ tonight _ , Anne was going to get to the bottom of this  _ conception _ business. 

\---

The reading was, to be very generous, dry and uninspired, though Anne supposed it got the job done well enough. Some of the words were unknown even to Anne, and so she found herself sitting up long past her bedtime with two books from Gilbert Blythe, the tiny dictionary and the scientific tome, open on her lap, straining her eyes in the dim light from the candle. 

She would usually have more than one candle, maybe even a kerosene lamp, when she wanted to read in her room, but it  _ was _ very late, and she didn’t want to tempt fate (read; Marilla) any more than she already was. 

So, one candle it was, and the going was slow, but gradual, and when Anne finally got to the end of the chapter she felt more lost than ever. 

So, it really was just like animal husbandry? Was the human being really nothing more than a bipedal animal, clothing itself and putting on such airs but, at the root of things, still just an animal, fated to perform the same distasteful act as farm animals to progress their species? Where was the romance? Where was the  _ poetry _ ? Was this really what all those beautiful, romantic lines were written about? Was Anne missing something?

Wasn’t it supposed to be the pinnacle of human experience, two souls coming together to share the most intimate and sacred of acts? Well, Anne coloured slightly, recalling what parts came into play with the act, intimate it may very well be, but, sacred? Beautiful? The act and biology of it seemed so… so un-romantical at its core, where was the, the  _ lovemaking _ supposed to go? 

Anne didn’t sleep much that night, consumed as she was with thoughts of how one could  _ possibly _ make the entire thing at least an iota of how romantic and beautiful it was supposed to be, but she was up with the sun either way, the routine ingrained deeper than sleep, and buzzing with questions. 

She had so many of them! And, now that she knew what she was talking about, it should be entirely possible to talk to Gilbert about this. It would be an entirely scientific discussion, as that horrid book had already made clear, and she just wanted… she  _ just _ wanted… something. There had to be  _ something _ ,  _ something _ she was missing, something that would turn this whole thing on its head, that would make it look less like a bleak fate one had to bear and more like. More like a poem. More like something that Anne would actually feel inspired to  _ do _ one day, instead of just  _ tolerating  _ being done to her.

She didn’t take the book to school. She didn’t know why, exactly, but she didn’t want to share this knowledge she had acquired, just yet, not even with Diana. Part of it was because she was quite sure she would be shunned as a horrid little orphan girl spewing despicable things if Mrs Barry found out, and partly because… because this was something she wanted to turn over and examine for herself first, for a little bit. 

She was a far sight removed from the girl who couldn’t discern between what was appropriate to share with everyone around her and what was better kept to herself, and this was something she was sure not everyone would even  _ want  _ to know, especially poor Ruby. 

And. And she didn’t know about any of the other boys, but this was something she and Gilbert knew. Together. They had read about it in the same book, they both carried this knowledge somewhere inside them, and Anne wondered when ,exactly, Gilbert had made the shift in his head. When he had looked at their classmates, knowing he knew  _ exactly _ how they were made, how they might one day make children… It was a strange, removed feeling in her head, something that needed time to settle. 

In the meantime, no one suspected she knew any more than she was saying, so it was fine. In some ways, Anne thought, walking with Diana to school, her mouth running on autopilot as they talked about school and Queens, she felt more mature. She was one step further removed from childish and ridiculous fancies about love, and it was good, but it was also bad, and she really needed to talk to Gilbert and get this all sorted out. 

He would know what to say. Anne just  _ knew  _ it. He always did, somehow, the two years he had on Anne showing up more and more prominently in his knowledge of the world, and his place in it. 

Throughout the day, Anne couldn’t help but be more aware of the people around her than before, boys and girls. She caught herself staring at the considerable swell of Tillie’s bosom on more than one occasion, thinking that Tillie would have  _ no  _ trouble in that particular biological department. Even Diana’s hips flared most accommodatingly, much more than Anne’s own. While it was true that she had filled out some in the three years she had lived in Avonlea, there was no denying the fact that, next to the other girls, she still looked particularly girlish. She had bosoms of her own, though modest, and she wasn’t quite boyish in stature anymore, but Anne couldn’t help thinking that she was less than the biological ideal. 

And all of that was not even taking into account her horrible  _ hair  _ and  _ freckles _ . God was surely having a good chuckle when he decided on Anne’s Shirley’s appearance. 

She could barely look at the boys the whole day, mind flitting to the bodily changes they too go through, and the reasons for it, and how they--

Anne shook her head quickly, catching the attention of Diana. 

“Are you alright?” Diana’s hand was a gentle pressure on Anne’s arm, and Anne smiled quickly, eager to set Diana at ease. As she set Diana’s mind at ease, she couldn’t help but steal a glance over at Gilbert. 

He, after all, knew all of the things Anne was currently wrestling with, and he didn’t seem to be acting any differently than usual. Was it simply because he was older, and thus more equipped to handle the world? 

He had of course known the things Anne had just learned about the previous night a fair bit longer than she had, and had had time to get used to it. He certainly seemed to be no different than usual, head studiously bent over his book, faint lines of concentration in his brow. Anne wondered, if she had been looking for it, would she have noticed a difference in the way he acted when he found out about all of this. Or was he simply so at peace, at ease with the world that it wouldn’t even have ruffled a feather in his cap?

Thankfully, the study group for Queens was after school again and Anne didn’t need to imagine an excuse to get away from Diana. No, all she had to do was ensure she and Gilbert were the last left in the study group (not hard, since Gilbert made it a habit to stay as late as possible) and pack up at the same time as he did. 

If he had cottoned on to what she was doing, he gave no indication of it as they gathered their respective belongings, waved Miss Stacy away on her motorbike, and started off towards his house. Anne only hesitated for a second, sending a quick glance towards her own path home, but by the time she looked back at Gilbert, he was already a ways down the road and she had to shift into a quick jog to catch up to him. Once she did, she fell in beside him, ignoring the confused look he sent her way, opting to catch her breath instead. She intended to have all her faculties intact for this conversation. 

“Uh, can I help you with something?” He hadn’t stopped walking, but he had slowed down, presumably to accommodate her, and if Anne was so inclined she might have thanked him for thinking of her, but she wasn’t, so she didn’t.

“Yes, actually, thanks for  _ finally _ noticing!” Anne smiled, falling easily into the half-teasing, half-antagonistic air that passed for normal between them. Her grin widened as he rolled his eyes and resumed his normal pace. It was quiet. Anne cleared her throat. “Aren’t you going to ask me  _ what _ you can help me with?”

He scoffed, but she could hear the smile in his voice as he replied. “Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, it has been my experience that there is no force in the world that could stop you once you’ve decided on something, so I’m sure you’ll have out with it whether I ask you about it not.”

“You might still ask,” Anne huffed.

He stopped, and Anne stopped with him, and he turned towards her with a smile-frown. She had created her own name for it, since he always seemed to wear that expression around her, and Anne liked to think it was hers specially, so she felt compelled to name it. 

(Recently she had begun to think the expression looked like he was looking at a puzzle he would most dearly like to solve, but wasn’t sure he had all the pieces for. Anne still hadn’t decided if she wanted to be solved.)

“Very well, then, what can I help you with?”

Satisfied, Anne stepped to the side of the road, gesturing to the log of a fallen tree. “Do you have to be home urgently for chores? It’s just… It’s just a few questions. It won’t take long.”

Gilbert sighed and looked down the road, before twisting his lips into what Anne had come to call his exasperated smile, and followed her to the log. “I suppose I have a few moments. I can’t linger too long though.”

“Neither can I, so this is perfect,” Anne declared, setting her books and lunch-basket on her lap as Gilbert took a seat beside her and turned towards her expectantly. Okay, she could do this. She had  _ practised _ . “About the, uh, the book…” Anne started fiddling with the bow she had tied around her basket, hands suddenly  _ needing _ to be busy. “Is it really all so, so completely  _ bland?  _ I  _ know _ I have an overactive imagination, but all those romantic poems and beautiful stories make this whole, well,  _ thing _ out to be ever so romantical and something one would yearn for and yet the book made it sound so… so  _ distasteful _ , really, and I can’t actually imagine anyone wanting to do it and--”

“Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, are you asking me about  _ sex? _ ”

His voice was loud and ringing, and Anne jumped into action, hand flying to cover his mouth while her eyes strained along the road, checking to see if anyone had overheard Gilbert’s  _ unfortunate _ little outburst. “Are you out of mind?” Anne demanded, turning back to a wide-eyed Gilbert, cheeks flaming hot and red around her hand that was still covering his mouth. She removed it with a sniff and decided not to address the fact that he was blushing like a schoolboy, on account of the fact that she would then have to admit that she herself was inching into the tomato-coloured department. 

“Am  _ I _ \--  _ you’re _ the one that decided asking me about,” he lowered his voice to a hiss, “about  _ sex _ was at all appropriate and--”

“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Anne burst out, completely disregarding her own insistence about being quiet. “You’re, you’re the one that wants to be a doctor, who’ll one day have to  _ work _ with people who I’m  _ sure  _ will have questions along the same grain as mine! And, and it’s not as if  _ anyone _ else here is willing to answer my questions about all this, especially not Marilla, and poor Matthew would have a heart attack. Even Miss Stacy was terribly vague about it all and, and if I want to be a woman of the world, a seasoned adventurer, which I’m quite determined to be, I’ll have you know, shouldn’t I  _ know _ about all this?” Anne’s chest was heaving as she finished her speech, and it was only then she realised she had gotten up, gesturing empathetically in an effort to get her point across and Gilbert was looking up at her with… a strange expression on his face.

His cheeks were still red, even the tips of his ears were, but his mouth was pursed and, and he seemed to be actually entertaining Anne’s declaration, much to Anne’s delight. He wasn’t immediately dismissing her, or telling her this was something that she need not worry her mind about, as she had half feared. He was thinking about it, considering it, and Anne could almost see the exact moment when he came to a conclusion.

She wondered when she had become so proficient in reading the expressions of Gilbert Blythe.

“You… you want to know if there’s a… if, ah, intercourse between humans is more than what it is between animals?”

Anne nodded, then shrugged. “More or less, I guess.”

Gilbert nodded, crossing his arms, fingers playing a staccato rhythm across his forearms. “Okay, okay, I guess I see where you’re coming from. Sort of. I just-- I  _ will _ answer you about my views on that, although you might have to give me a day or two to get my thoughts in order, but may I ask why, exactly, this is quite so important to you? I only mean to say,” he hastened to say as Anne’s eyebrows raised up, “that for years and years before you and probably after you women have been going about the world and into marriage without knowing all about this, without thinking too hard about it, and why it’s so important to you?”

Anne sighed, and went to sit down on the log again, ordering the words bubbling in the back of her throat in as straight and neat a line as she could manage. “Growing up in the orphanage, and around families that had too many children to manage, the idea of having children, and caring for them, and how they came into the world when their parents didn’t want them…. It was always a sore subject with me.” Anne looked up to see Gilbert looking seriously at her, nodding encouragingly when she paused. “I’ve subsisted on fairytales and romantic poems for years now,  _ sure _ that, that all those beautiful words had to be about something, something  _ more _ than the misery and crude displays of humanity that I had witnessed up till that point. I wanted it to be beautiful, I  _ want _ it to be beautiful, I want conception and-- and  _ lovemaking _ to be as special as all those words paint them to be. I want it to be something, something special, instead of something to be endured to propagate a bloodline.” 

Anne smiled sadly up at Gilbert, for once not trying to hide her own emotions. “I guess I just want to prove, to myself, to the orphanage, to all the miserable, poor children I shared a home with, that things don’t have to be the way it was with us.” Gilbert’s eyes were big, soulful, dark pools of feelings that Anne had not yet learned to swim in, and she looked away, forcing a suspiciously watery chuckle across her lips. “Sounds quite silly, doesn’t it? The romantic ideals of a silly girl.”

A warm weight landed on Anne’s shoulder, and she looked up, startled, to see a small, soft, smile curling around the edges of Gilbert’s mouth. He shook his head slightly, not as if to disagree, but as if to parse her words. “Not silly, no. Unusual, maybe,” he grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes in return, smiling slightly in response, “but not silly. Then again, nothing about you is quite usual, so I really should stop being surprised about the things you do.” His hand tightened on her shoulder. “That’s… not a bad thing, to be clear. Not being usual. That’s not a bad thing.”

Anne couldn’t have stopped the big, delighted smile spreading across her face if she had tried, so she didn’t, and the answering smile spreading across Gilbert’s face made something small and warm and slightly frightening light up in Anne’s stomach. Before the air between them could become charged with…. something, something heavy and thick like treacle, like it always does when they happened to look at each too long, Anne blinked away, shrugging her shoulder so Gilbert’s hand slipped off, a small chuckle bubbling up out of her. 

“So, in a few days, then?”

Gilbert stood up to mirror her, still smiling, and nodded. “A few days, and I’ll answer your questions to the best of my abilities, Anne.”

\---

The next few days passed uneventfully, Anne’s new knowledge settling over her gradually, until one day she realised she went an entire day without looking at someone and thinking about that book. It made more sense to her, now, how Gilbert had read about those things and still managed to act normally. The first few days had been strange, to be sure, of course it was, but after that… well. It was a fact of life, and Anne had never been particularly good at brooding about one thing where there were so many other things happening around her. 

For example, one afternoon, at lunch, Ruby gathered all the girls at lunch and announced, with an excited flush to her face, that she no longer had a crush on Gilbert Blythe. “Of course, I’m sorry to have to say so for his sake, as I’m sure he’s been in love with me for ages,” she said, fiddling with the edges of her sleeves, “but he’s been dragging his feet for far too long, so I’ve decided I love Moody now!” 

She was smiling triumphantly as she said this, and Anne felt off balance as some pressure seemed to release in her chest. Which was strange, since she had never even realised there was any sort of pressure there at all, and why it would be tied up with Ruby’s declaration was a mystery in and of itself. “You can… you can just decide it, just like that?” 

Ruby turned to Anne with a huff in her throat. “Well, no, it’s not quite like that. It’s easier because Moody is  _ such _ a worthy object for my affection, don’t you think?”

Anne nodded hesitantly, looking out the window to see Moody tripping over his own feet as the boys played with a ball outside. When she looked back, she caught Diana’s eye and, as one, the two of them started an impromptu coughing fit, hiding their smiling mouths behind demure hands. 

A throat cleared behind the giggling group of girls and Anne turned to see Gilbert standing behind her, book clutched in his hand and flashing a quick smile around the circle of girls before focusing on her again. “Uh, remember to pick up those things that Matthew wanted this afternoon, okay? Right after school would be best so I can hand them off and start with my chores.” Gilbert ducked his head slightly and nodded almost imperceptibly at her, and Anne suddenly felt flush with the knowledge that they had a secret, and that Gilbert was acknowledging it in front of other people. 

Not that they knew about it, but still. Not that Anne had any reason to feel so  _ bothered _ about it, but  _ still _ . 

“Uh, right, yes, of course. I’ll-- after school?”

“Yeah, right after.” He nodded at her one more time, nodded at the rest of the group, and walked off, leaving Anne to fend questions and curious glances from Diana. 

It was easy enough, given how it was common knowledge that the Blythe-Lacroix and Cuthbert families were very much intertwined and on very good terms, so Anne only had that to distract her for a second before the rest of the day seemed to speed past, right up until the point she was fetching her hat and coat, surreptitiously watching Gilbert out of the corner of her eye. 

Was she supposed to wait until he left then follow after? Was she supposed to walk  _ with  _ him? 

Gilbert must have sensed her predicament since, as soon as he had his things gathered he tilted his head at her, and asked, holding the door open, “Well, you coming then?” and. And that was that, then. That was that, and they were off and Anne tried to pretend there weren’t whispers and stares following them as they walked down the road. Everything they were speculating about was sure to be false, anyway. Anne  _ wasn’t _ going to fetch something at Gilbert’s house, but they also weren’t walking together for any sort of, sort of  _ romantical _ intentions at all. 

Gilbert stopped at the same log they had talked at the last time, though he led her further off the road this time, until they were almost in the wood proper, cool shade blocking the still meagre heat of the sun. Anne shivered as she leaned against a tree, not missing the sharp glance Gilbert sent her way. 

She shrugged off his eyes and cleared her throat, eager to get her answers, but also eager to get this entire thing over with. Of course she wanted answers to her questions, wanted to hear her fears alleviated, but she had been feeling doubts about the way she had gone about obtaining those answers the last few days. Was it really proper at all to go to Gilbert, a boy not in her family, to ask these types of questions? Is it appropriate to ask these kinds of questions at all, no matter what potential career path the questioned party may have decided upon? Had Anne egregiously overstepped her bounds?

“So, have you thought about what I said, Doctor Blythe?” Keep the atmosphere light, teasing, friendly enough to avoid any lingering unease or tension between them. It seemed to work, as Gilbert’s face instantly brightened and he rolled his eyes at her, leaning on a tree opposite her. 

“Why, yes, Miss Shirley-Cuthbert, I have indeed.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back, and, and Anne wanted this over with right now, because there was a warm feeling in her chest and she could  _ not _ begin to fancy Gilbert Blythe simply because Ruby had decided she wasn’t in love with him anymore and he was now, in crude terms, open season. 

“Well, then, get on with it. I actually  _ do _ have chores at home and Marilla will have my head if I don’t get to all of them.” 

He chuckled, but sobered up almost instantly, staring intently at her, as if to ensure she was paying attention. Not that that was a worry at all. Anne didn’t think she’d ever been so focused on something in her  _ life _ . 

“To be clear, while the mechanics of it all is as you’ve read, what I’m going to say now has more to do with my own opinion on the matter, as well as Bash’s.”

“You  _ told _ \--”

“ _ I _ asked him a question about, all of this, man to man, and he answered me, so, no, actually, I didn’t tell him anything. Have a bit of faith, Anne.”

Anne scoffed but zipped her mouth accordingly, tossing the key behind her and privately delighting in the smile that got her. She  _ didn’t _ fancy Gilbert, that was a ridiculous notion, but she also wasn’t blind. He was a handsome lad, if anyone was, and it was pleasing to look at him. It didn’t hurt that a smile brought out the shallow dimples that hid in his cheeks.

“Thank you, now, as I was  _ saying _ , while the biology behind it is, well, what it is, my opinion and experiences, as well as Bash’s, very much colour my view of it, and some of it will, I hope, help to set you at ease.” There was a slight flush high on Gilbert’s cheeks, and a faint ringing in Anne’s ears, and she wondered what  _ experience _ Gilbert was talking about. She nodded. 

Gilbert exhaled, paused then started pacing in front of her, cap in his fidgeting hands. Anne would have said something to stop him, to remind him of the task at hand, but before she could, he started talking. 

“The minister says the bond between a man and a woman is sacred and there’s nothing like it in the world. I believe him, but I also believe that it doesn’t necessarily have to be solely between a man and a woman. It could be between a, a woman and a woman, or a man and a man.” He stopped for a moment, glancing up to gauge Anne’s reaction, and she nodded and smiled in encouragement. “So, that’s what the minister says. It’s also, from what I understood you said, how you would like to view that relationship. As something beautiful and sacred, and special.” Anne nodded, even though he hadn’t looked at her. There was a tight, shivery feeling in her chest as he talked, and she couldn’t help but press her hands to her heart to settle it. 

“Bash says that, while the official reason behind people having, having sex is to make children, done in the right way, and with the right person, it could also be lots of fun and, and special.” His ears flared up red, and Anne focused on that, utterly unable to look at his face. “I believe that there’s something more to the romance between two people who love each other and that, that that experience, shared appropriately, could be something more.” He gave a firm nod at the ground, before spinning around to face Anne head on. “So, yes, while I’m sure there  _ are _ cases of conception that happen with… less than enthusiastic consent and enjoyment of both parties, I don’t think that that  _ is _ or  _ should be _ the norm. Nor, I should add, do I believe that anyone should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term and care for a child they don’t want, both for the happiness of the parent as well as the child.” He nods once more, coming to a complete stop in front of Anne. “Does that, does that answer your question, put you more at ease than before, at least?”

The strange thing was, it did, actually. He hadn’t really said anything Anne hadn’t known, or suspected herself, really. Hadn’t said something especially groundbreaking, things that hadn’t already been milling about in Anne’s head, but hearing it from Gilbert, from an intellectual equal and a peer, it set her more at ease than anyone could have, she was pretty sure. 

The fact that Gilbert saying all of this set her more at ease than the thought of Diana saying it, deserved more thought, Anne was pretty sure, but not now, not this precise moment. Now, she was pure feeling and relief and a tight fondness in her chest and right  _ now _ she didn’t want to overthink things, so she nodded. “I-- Yes, thank you. That really, it really, really  _ does _ help.” She was smiling at him, and he was smiling at her, and Anne remembered the way he had looked at her while they were dancing, remembered the way her eyes had seemed to stick to him like glue, how he couldn’t seem to stop smiling the entire time. She remembered the warm, comforting weight of his hand in hers, and hers in his. She remembered feeling the center of her world had shifted to that tiny point of contact, like suddenly she wasn’t on the earth that rotated around the sun but like she and the rest of the cosmos simply existed to rotate around that warm touch of skin against skin. 

She wasn’t overthinking things, so she didn’t. She simply stepped forward, arms coming up to rest around Gilbert’s shoulders. She was originally just going in for a hug, something warm and reassuring, but the closer her face got to his, his wide-eyed, apprehensive face, the more she was tempted and so, when she was close enough, Anne closed her eyes and pressed a soft, chaste, closed-lipped kiss to Gilbert’s mouth. 

It was barely there, blink and you’d miss it, and then Anne was out of his arms again, stammering her thanks, and running off, not staying to observe the effects of her actions, though the way his arms had tightening around her waist when she had stepped away gave her a clue that she wasn’t as entirely unwelcome as she might have feared.

Her lips were tingling, her heart was beating a mile a minute, and she had  _ so  _ much to tell Diana. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sex ed is so important pls that scene about making babies with your hands in the show is funny af but also CONCERNING so here we go cause we KNOW Anne is going to hold a little impromptu class of her own after this. 
> 
> Twitter: [googlyeyes1507](https://twitter.com/googlyeyes1507)


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